Industries: Glass

Pages 155-158

A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 2, General; Ashford, East Bedfont With Hatton, Feltham, Hampton With Hampton Wick, Hanworth, Laleham, Littleton. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1911.

GLASS

One of the earliest known references to the
purchase of glass in Middlesex is contained in
a writ issued by Edward III, dated 28 March
1350. (fn. 1) It recites that John de Lincoln,
master for the works in the King's Chapel in
the Palace of Westminster, and John Geddyng
had been appointed jointly and severally to
provide, procure, and buy in the counties of
Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Middlesex [and twentythree others], in the most convenient places,
as much glass as should be necessary for the
said chapel; and also to provide workmen,
glaziers, &c. A similar writ dated 20 March
1351 (fn. 2) gives the like commission to John de
Bampton and John de Geddyng. The expense rolls give full details of the wages paid
to the glaziers and other workmen from
20 June 25 Edw. III, to 5 December 26
Edw. III. (fn. 3) Master John de Chester was paid
7s. a week for working on the drawings of
several images for the glass windows, and was
assisted by five master glaziers working on
similar drawings at 1s. a day each. Other
painters on glass received 7d. a day each,
glaziers who cut and joined glass for the
windows were paid 6d. a day, and workmen
who were apparently labourers had 4d. or 4½d.
a day. Thomas de Dadyngton and Robert
Yerdesle, who ground the colours, were also
paid at the rate of 4½d.; and white, blue,
azure, and red glass was bought by the
'pondus' and conveyed from London to
Westminster. Other examples of windowglass both pictorial and heraldic in religious
and secular buildings throughout the country
show how great an advance had been made
by this art in England by the middle of the
14th century.

We meet with some interesting information concerning a Middlesex glass-house in
1447, when the executors of Richard de
Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who died in
1439, were engaging the services of various
artificers for the construction of the magnificent Beauchamp Chapel in St. Mary's Church,
Warwick, as a last resting-place for the earl.
The contract for glazing the windows was
assigned to a Westminster glazier in the
following terms:- (fn. 4)

John Prudde of Westminster glasier, 23 Junii
25 H. 6, covenanteth &c. to glase all the windows
in the new chapell in Warwick, with Glasse beyond
the Seas, and with no Glasse of England; and
that in the finest wise, with the best, cleanest, and
strongest glasse of beyond the Sea that may be had
in England, and of the finest colours of blew,
yellow, red, purpurl, sanguine, and violet, and of
all other colours that shall be most necessary, and
best to make rich and embellish the matters,
Images, and stories [histories] that shall be delivered
and appointed by the said Executors by patterns
in paper, afterwards to be newly traced and pictured by another Painter in rich colour at the
charges of the said Glasier. All which proportions
the said John Prudde must make perfectly to fine,
glase, eneylin it, and finely and strongly set it in
lead and souder, as well as any Glasse is in England. Of white Glasse, green Glasse, black Glasse,
he shall put in as little as shall be needfull for the
shewing and setting forth of the matters, Images,
and storyes, and the said Glasier shall take charge
of the same Glasse, wrought and to be brought to
Warwick, and set up there in the windows of the
said Chapell; the Executors paying to the said
Glasier for every foot of Glasse ijs. and so for the
whole xcjli. js. xd.

For some alterations Prudde received a
further payment of 'xiijli. vjs. ivd.' These
comprised some additions 'for our Lady, and
Scripture of the marriage of the Earle . . .
the same to be set forth in Glasse in most
fine and curious colours.' Some information
as to the relative cost of English and foreign
glass appears in 'The reporte of John Bote,
glassyer,' (fn. 5) which gives his charges for work
done in 1485 at Cold Harbour, the famous
London mansion fronting the Thames. The
prices of the various kinds of glass were:
Dutch, 4½d. a foot; Venice, 5d.; Normandy,
6d.; English, 1d.; it is probable that the
English glass was of smaller size.

Macpherson, (fn. 6) quoting from The Present
state of England, anno 1683, says, 'The fine
flint glass, little inferior to that of Venice, was
first made in the Savoy House in the Strand;'
nothing beyond this statement is known respecting this supposed manufactory. Other
unsuccessful attempts made in Tudor times
to set up the manufacture will come more
conveniently for notice under London.

Another of these pioneers was one Cornelius
de Lannoy who came from the Netherlands
towards the end of 1564 and set up a workshop in Somerset House. (fn. 7) He was subsidized
by the English Government, and undertook
to introduce improvements and instruct English workmen in the glass-makers' art as
practised in his own country. A letter from
Armagill Waade to Cecil (fn. 8) of 7 August 1565
states that Lannoy could not find suitable
materials in England, and that the potters
could not 'make one pot to content him.
They know not howe to seasson their stuff to
make the same to susteyne the force of his
great fyres.' He was forced to send to Antwerp 'for new provisyons of glasses, his old
being spent.' The English workmen made
no progress in learning the art, perhaps
through the want of the proper materials;
'all our glasse makers cannot facyon him one
glasse tho' he stoode by to teach them.'
Lannoy received £150 for 'provisyons,' £30
on his arrival in England, and £30 a quarter,
the first payment being for the quarter ending
25 March 1565. The queen and her council
were, like the heads of most other countries,
very desirous of promoting the glass manufacture, but Lannoy's enterprise proved unsuccessful. He was also an alchemist, and made
persistent attempts to induce the queen to
take up his schemes for transmuting base
metals into gold. (fn. 9)

Among the French Protestant refugees who
fled from their country after the massacre of
St. Bartholomew in 1572 were some who
brought with them the art of glass-making.
One of these families of French glass-makers
named Bigoe, Bagoe, or Bagg, has been traced
by Hallen (fn. 10) in various parts of England and
Ireland. In 1623 Abraham Bigoe had a
glass-house at Ratcliff and another in the isle
of Purbeck. He was probably the founder of
the firm mentioned by Lysons in his account
of the parish of Stepney published in 1795. (fn. 11)
Among the industries of the hamlet of Ratcliff he includes 'Bowles's celebrated manufacture of window glass, established by the
great-grandfather of the present proprietor,
who is said to have been the first to manufacture crown glass in this kingdom.' Lysons
adds, 'it has certainly been brought to its
present improved state by his family.'

The number of glass-houses in England in
1696 is said to have been eighty-eight, (fn. 12) but
how many of these were in Middlesex cannot
be ascertained.

An important discovery in glass manufacture made by Thomas Tilston, a merchant of
London, early in the reign of Charles II, gave
London glass a great reputation both here and
abroad. After many fruitless experiments it
was found that by reducing the proportion of
lime and adding a small quantity of litharge
or oxide of lead a brilliant and practically
colourless glass was obtained, which was not
only more fusible but brighter and clearer
than the old glass. This became known as
English flint glass, and Tilston, who made the
discovery, applied for and obtained a grant of
the whole use and benefit of his invention. (fn. 13)
The fine qualities of this new glass struck a
severe blow at the Bohemian colourless glass,
which had itself beaten Venetian glass out of
the field. (fn. 14) Its superiority lay in its great
density, which in some cases exceeded that of
the diamond; the English cut glass rivalled
the diamond in the production of prismatic
displays. In 1713 English cut glass began to
appear on the Continent. In 1760, on the
authority of M. Gerspach, a French writer,
England practically supplied the whole of
France with glass. It is strange that so few
specimens of this important art and so little
information concerning it have survived. The
earliest known piece of English cut glass is
one' bearing the monogram of Frederick Prince
of Wales, which must therefore be dated
between 1729 and 1751. The best period
of this industry is between 1750 and 1790,
and it began to decay early in the 19th century. Mr. Powell marks three stages of progress: the first, in which cutting is subservient
to form, lasted to about 1790; the second,
in which the claims of form and cutting are
equally balanced, continued till about 1810;
and the third, not yet terminated, in which
form has largely given way to cutting. The
softness and high refractive power of their
glass proved a snare to English cutters, who
to please the public strove after still greater
dazzling prismatic effects. For this, deeper
cutting and thicker material became necessary,
and the glass produced bristled with prismatic
pyramids which effectually destroyed all beauty
of form.

No other records of glass-makers in London
outside the City walls are met with until
1760, when William Riccards, merchant, and
Richard Russell, glass-maker, both of Whitechapel, obtained a patent (fn. 15) for fourteen years
for a new method of making pots and building furnaces for crown glass, plate glass, and
all sorts of green glass.

William Tassie, who is best known by his
wax medallion-portraits, invented a white
enamel composition which he used for reproductions of gems. This was a vitreous paste,
the method of preparing which he kept secret;
his place of business was from 1772 to 1777
in Compton Street, Soho, and from 1778 to
1791 at 20 Leicester Fields (Leicester Square).
A manufactory for the production of plateglass by blowing, the last of its kind, existed
in East Smithfield almost down to 1830, before
it gave way to the powerful competition of the
British Cast Plate Glass Manufacturers. (fn. 16)

A minor glass industry was carried on by
small workers in Bethnal Green and Shoreditch
up to about forty years ago. This was the
manufacture of glass beads for exportation to
native tribes in Africa. Hartshorne, (fn. 17) writing
in 1897, says:-'They bought their coloured
glass canes from the glass-makers and melted
them at a jet, dropping the metal upon a
copper wire coated with whitening, the wire
being turned during the process, and when
cold the beads would slip off. The men were,
however, so careless and unpunctual that the
trade came to an end.'

Mirror-making is carried on as part of the
cabinet-maker's trade, which involves among
other operations that of glass-bevelling. The
glass, having been made of right size and
shape by the cutter, is passed to the beveller,
who first presses the edge of the glass against
an iron grinding-mill, or wheel, upon which
a mixture of sand and water continually plays.
The next process is to submit the glass to a
revolving stone, upon which water trickles;
this removes the roughness left by the first
operation. The final polish is then given
by a wooden wheel covered with polishing
material. The shape workers, who produce
curves and other elaborate shapes with their
bevelling, are highly-skilled workmen. The
glass then goes to the 'sider,' who cleans and
prepares it for silvering. It is then turned
into a mirror by the silverer, by the application of silver reduced by admixture with
various chemicals. By substituting this process for the use of quicksilver, which formerly
prevailed, silvering has now become as little
dangerous as any other branch of the trade.
When the cost of plate-glass became so much
reduced, and the use of mirrors in all kinds of
furniture increased, the trade grew considerably; but during quite recent years, although
the price of glass has still continued to fall,
the London trade has remained stationary. (fn. 18)

Our English glass at the present day suffers
much from the competition of French and
Belgian glass. (fn. 19) The foreign glass is not only
cheaper to produce, wages being lower where
it is made than in this country, but it is said
to be purer and whiter in colour, because of
some superiority in the material available.

Through the exertions of Dr. Salviati, a
native of Venice, the old glass industry of
Murano has been successfully revived, and a
London company (known as the Venice and
Murano Glass & Mosaic Company, Ltd.) was
formed in 1870 for the sale of its goods.
One department is the manufacture of enamel
mosaics, an excellent example of which may
be seen in the mosaic decorations of St. Paul's
Cathedral. The firm also largely produces
table glass of artistic design and fine quality.

It remains to speak very briefly of artists in
stained glass. Some excellent work has been
done by firms of the present day. Much of
the painted glass produced by Messrs. Cottier &
Co., of Grafton Street, is extremely fine, both
in design and colour. Messrs. James Powell &
Sons, of South Kensington and Bayswater,
whose principal works are at Whitefriars,
have supplied six windows for St. James's
Church, Marylebone. Messrs. Clayton &
Bell, of Regent Street, have placed some good
windows in Ely Cathedral; and Messrs.
Heaton, Butler & Bayne, of Garrick Street,
have also executed very fine work.